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Posted by: Craig | 2009-11-17

Q.

Trying to get 3yr old to sleep on his own

Hi doc

We are trying to get our 3yr old to sleep on a matress in our room. He doe have his own room but we have an alarm in the house (which is armed at night) and we do not want to put him in his room in case he walk over and activate the alarm.

The &quot problem&quot now is that he wont go sleep unless I (not his mother ) go and lie next to him and wait till he sleeps. last night i tried to let him moan abit before i went to him but he didn' t stop until i went there. How do i approach this as my wife is 3 months pregnant and i want to get him to sleep on his own before baby comes. Am i to early and pushing things or should they be able to do this by now. He did wake up in the middle of the night (and cried) and then his mother needed to go lie on the matress with him. As you can imagine this can become frustrating and tiring for me as a parent as daddy need to do everything. he refuse help from his mother most of the time

Expert's Reply

A.

This question comes up very often. Of course the only solution for a 3 year old is to let him sleep in his own room. You will have to arrange the alarm system in a way that he will not trigger it if he leaves his room at night.Sleeping on a mattress next to your bed is not the answer as you are there near to him and he just has to make a sound or two and you are there to lie next to him. He has now become used to this. To break the habit, which may not be easy now, he will need to go to his own bed. Then you can start getting him used to sleeping there.

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